Killer Bees Explained

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When my husband first showed interest in beekeeping, one of my biggest fears is that we would accidentally end up with a “Killer Bee” colony. I had heard rumors of Killer Bee colonies coming up from states like Florida to the north. Images of bee swarms chasing us in angry pursuit and thousands of deadly bee stings fed my anxiety of my husband’s desire to have honey. This fear came from ignorance, and once I learned more about the nature of bees, I soon realized that there was little to fear, especially since we live in the northern state of Michigan.

The African Honeybee is a species of bee known to be highly defensive. It is believed that they are responsible for killing over 1,000 people and have also killed horses and other animals.

The European Honeybee is the domesticated bee that we typically think of when we think of the honeybee. The United States has no native honey bee. Even wild colonies are feral European colonies that have escaped domestication at some point in their heritage. The honeybee came over from Europe in the 1600s. This bee can include Russian, Italian and many other more gentle strains highly hybridized. The European Honey bee is a more docile species.

Africanized Bees are a hybrid of African bees and European bees. They were created in 1957 by biologist Warwick E. Kerr in Brazil in an attempt to create a bee that would be a prolific honey producer and also flourish in a warm climate. In true Jurassic Park-style, the bees escaped the lab hives when a queen excluder was accidentally removed and began interbreeding with wild and local bees spreading the aggressive genes.

Commonly Asked Questions About Killer Bees

Can they sting more than once?

No, just like a domesticated honeybee, the Africanized Honeybee stings its victim then the stinger is pulled from it’s abdomen resulting in death for the bee.

Is their venom more potent than the domesticated honeybee?

No, their venom is similar in strength to a domesticated honeybee.

The reason killer bees are so deadly is in their aggressiveness. In a European hive when the hive is disturbed you will have less bees sent out in defense. In an especially angry hive you may get a small swarm (about 10% of the hive). You may get a good many bee stings to make you unhappy about the experience, but it is usually not deadly unless you have an allergy. European strains do not sting to kill. When a bee stings it releases a pheromone to alert the colony to watch for future attacks

With killer bees, the entire colony attacks. This results in tens of thousands of bees stinging to defend the hive. With this concentration of venom, the victim will die if they can’t get away.

Africanized bees are also perturbed much easier which makes them much more dangerous. Even coming too close to a hive can summon an attack.

You can’t tell an Africanized bee from a European bee just by looking at it. Africanized bees do not look different from other honeybees.

So how does this affect all of us in the United States?

The Africanized bees made their way north and hit the United States borders around 1990. The first fatal attacks were reported in 2011 in Arizona and Texas. As the bee population spread attacks were then reported shortly after in Florida and Southern California.

Though the killer bee population is spreading across the southern United States, bee attacks are still rather rare. As African bees are interbreeding with European strains some of the aggressive behavior is getting watered down.

How does this affect the backyard beekeeper?

Even if you start with a docile European colony, when the queen leaves to mate with feral drones they could be bringing Africanized genes into your hive. The subsequent generations could hold the aggressive strain. It is thought that there is a small amount of African genes in all feral hives due to interbreeding. You may find over the years your hive’s personality may change.

If you live in the north you have less to worry about as the Africanized bees cannot survive our winters. However, that does not mean that you can’t get an Africanized colony if you’re ordering packaged bees from the south.

In my next post, I will talk about how to identify and deal with a defensive colony.

I stay in South Africa
I do bee removals and a bit of honey production
We only know the African honey bee”killer bee”
They are aggressive but not as bad as the storys I hear
The hole colleny wil not attack you bat a big % of the worker force
And only 3 out of every 30 removals I get realy verry aggressive sworms
Thats why we do most removals at night

I was sorry to see the first sentence of your explanation regarding the Africanized bee. You mentioned they are “aggressive”, while this maybe accurate, for the non-beekeeper it maybe more of a service to say the Africanized bee is highly defensive. When disturbed, they will defend their home aggressively. It may be a small point, however beekeepers often have their hands full defending business/hobby. Thank j

Africanized bees are being moved around the country, even to the north by migrant beekeepers. When a new queen supercedure mates in the south with and africanized drone. They build new hive colony and the migrant bee keepers bring the genetics north in summer. There again supercedures. There is no definitive proof that an africanized bee will die in the north winters, because they are hybrids too. The africanized defensive/aggressive trait will pass along. Hopefully the migrant beekeepers will recognize these aggressive bee hives and NOT transport them.

Thanks for this article. I really enjoyed learning about the more aggressive bees. As a new beekeeper, I have a question…..my hive is going to be about 20 feet from an open garden structure where I’ll be working on plants and relaxing. Will it irritate my bees for us to be that close to the hive as we go about our business?
Thanks!

I have been the object of many killer bee attacks in the late. 80s while in the army in Panama. I too think they’re highly defensive, rather than aggressive. Modern people always seem to think that any animal who will stand up for themselves is being aggressive. However, it has been my experience that this label applies mostly to us humans. I do admit though that the word extremely should precede defensive.

My son and I are building a small apiary in Eastern TX. We are focused on catching feral swarms only and as a result all of our bees have some African genes. They are more defensive and they have a much shorter fuse, but, they are very prolific and productive. We believe that they are probably the future of beekeeping because of their hardiness and resistance to so many pests.
As far as the negatives go, you have to locate hives in areas that limit their exposure to people in order to deal with their territorial nature and you have to learn to limit “open box” time to deal with their defensiveness.
Those genetics are loose in North America and won’t be contained which means that eventually all BK will need to deal with them.